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Warning: Gun confiscation coming soon

'Up to law-abiding owners to beat back next assault driven by emotion and fear'

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

A commentator from America’s neighbor to the north is renewing his warning to citizens of the United States that gun confiscation is coming soon, citing Connecticut laws enacted Jan. 1.

Brian Lilley, host of “Byline” on the Sun News Network, said he warned last year that gun confiscation was coming to America. He pointed to statistics showing gun ownership on the rise and gun violence on the decline to argue the issue really isn’t weapons.

He said once government gets a list of gunowners bureaucrats don’t like, it is just a matter of changing the definitions or rules to make the weapons illegal and order citizens to turn them in.

That’s exactly what happened in his home country of Canada, Lilley said.

“Gun sales up, gun crime down, gun deaths are down, but new laws are headed your way. It’s not about the guns, it’s about the control, the ability to control you, your life, what you can own, what you can buy, and what they can take away from you,” he said.

“Last year I issued a warning to American that gun confiscation was coming, that gun control laws would be tougher despite the evidence. Today that warning rings louder. It’s up to law-abiding gun owners to share this warning, and to arm themselves with facts to in order to beat back the next assault on gun owners driven by emotion and fear.”

Lilley pointed out that on Jan. 1 new gun laws went into effect that left Connecticut residents standing in long lines to register their semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines.

“It is happening in America,” he said. “Gun registration has been implemented in Connecticut. What’s even worse is that many residents consider this new law by the state an ‘unconstitutional’ requirement, but are complying anyway.”

Connecticut resident Scott Boccio told the blogger as he stood in line to register his firearms, “I understand why they’re doing it, but I don’t think it’s constitutional.”

Wrote the blogger: “No one has to ‘think’ your state law is unconstitutional. One reading of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment will tell you it is. The law of the land, the U.S. Constitution, was written to uphold individual rights, not subject individuals to mob rule. An unjust law is not law and should not be obeyed.”

The letters said the owner must “immediately surrender your rifle and/or shotgun to your local police precinct” because records showed the weapon has “an ammunition feeding device capable of holding more than five (5) rounds of ammunition.”

Blogger Robert Farago commented: “There it is: the reason why expanded background checks, indeed all background checks and any type of registration, set the stage for confiscation.”

“The main element of registration is that the government can track legal gun owners. In this case the department will have a list of every owner and the specific guns each person buys,” he wrote. “The California Department of Justice relies on the current ownership lists to identify gun owners and cross check those with lists of people how have been convicted of crimes or have been involuntarily committed for mental issues.”

WND has reported extensively on a new effort by the Obama administration to use mental-health diagnoses to deprive people of their Second Amendment rights.

It’s already being applied to military veterans. Government evaluators simply are determining that veterans should not be allowed to have weapons and reporting their names to the FBI’s banned list. Just last week, Obama issued several executive orders that would make it easier for medical diagnoses and other evaluations of citizens to be reported to the FBI.

“At the core of the gun-banners’ program is national gun registration,” the NRA explains. “Gun registration is very good for one thing – confiscation. And even more immediately, gun registration is ideal to bolster the quickly growing public persecution of gun owners.”

The warning continued: “Pete Shields, past president of the Brady Campaign, explained in 1977, ‘The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition – except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs and licensed gun collectors – totally illegal.'”

The real horrors of gun confiscation, however, already have been documented in the United States. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of weapons – legally obtained and owned – were grabbed from citizens. The confiscations came after New Orleans Police Superintendent P. Edwin Compass III announced: “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons.”

To make sure the message was loud and clear, the city’s deputy police chief, Warren Riley, told ABC News: “No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons.”

Then they did exactly that.

One man at a post-Katrina meeting held in conjunction with the National Rifle Association said: “The bottom line is this. Once they did it, they set a precedent. And what we’ve got to be sure [of] is that the precedent stops here.”

In a series of videos, the NRA has documented the stunning weapons grab by police in New Orleans. Videos show policy taking weapons from individuals, including one woman who was stunned when officers threw her against her kitchen wall because she had a small handgun for self-defense.

The not-to-be-forgotten images, Part 1:

Part 2:

The police actions – many of the victims describe the gun confiscation as out-and-out theft – left New Orleans’ residents, who had been prepared to stand their ground and defend themselves from thugs and looters running amok, defenseless.

Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, told WND earlier such plans “start smacking of a non-The United States of America” and more of “some Third World country.”

Herb Titus, a nationally known constitutional attorney and law professor, told WND at the time the government’s claim always is that such draconian powers will only be used “in an emergency situation.”

But there are so many “emergencies,” he said, that “all of our rights are in jeopardy.”

“It’s typical of the government to do this, typical of this age. You see the government believes it can make the decision for you better than you can make it for yourself. There’s a lot of this from the Obama administration,” he said.

The result? Government “as our master, rather than servant,” he said.

The danger is great, he added, noting that all the major scourges of the 20th century – Hitler, Mao and Stalin – started with confiscating the weapons of citizens.

Mathew Staver, chairman of the public interest law firm Liberty Counsel, has told WND Americans “should be shocked and rightly concerned” at attempts to ban and confiscate guns.

“This is a significant threat to our freedoms,” he said. “When the government takes away the ability to defend yourself, it crosses the line.”

Recorded testimonies from the NRA videos are stunning, including these statements from law-abiding residents of New Orleans who were subject to the city’s “emergency” gun confiscation:

“They didn’t care what your rights were.”

“They were drawing down on ME?”

“I thought they were going to kill me.”

“They really did a number on me,” said Patty Konie, who was thrown against her kitchen wall by police officers taking her handgun.

“You’re treated like a criminal and you did nothing wrong,” said Richard Styron.

“The took something they didn’t have a right to take.”

NRA officials said on the organization’s video that even after the danger was over, gun owners were not allowed to get their weapons back. Some arms had been destroyed by police officers; others were taken without an identifying receipt, so the owners had no way to prove their ownership.

Several even had original purchase receipts but were not allowed to retrieve their guns.

As a result, many of the victims of gun confiscation reported what they called almost “religious conversions” – from being apathetic about the Second Amendment to being strong supporters. One man reported 30 participants in his latest gun-training class.